| IT is
hard to ignore Dr Jomo Kwame Sundaram. First, there
is his rather unusual name.
His late father, greatly fascinated with the African
nationalist movement, had named him after the two
leading lights of African politics then – Jomo
Kenyatta of Kenya and Ghana's Kwame Nkrumah.
He was anointed, as his friend and fellow intellectual
Rustam A. Sani put it, "in the spirit of that
age".
Then there is no way one cannot notice him because,
at well over six feet, he looms head and shoulders
above most people.
Third, there is his distinguished career as an economist,
academic and author/editor of some 80 monographs and
books. He is a reference point for many other academics
and his work widely cited by them. His CV runs into
23 printed pages.
Finally, Jomo is a respected intellectual, if not
a leading public intellectual, in these parts.
More recently, the former Universiti Malaya professor
was in the news with his appointment as assistant
secretary-general of the UN Economics and Social Affairs
Department.
It is a newly created post that apparently had him
in mind from the point of conception and which will
see him in the role of chief economist of sorts to
the United Nations. Officially, his role is to assist
the Undersecretary for Economic and Social Affairs
in strengthening the economic work and analysis done
by the United Nations.
Many UN posts are filled by internal staff moving
up the ranks or on the recommendation of governments
and, in some cases, as a sort of golden handshake.
But Jomo's appointment, as some of his friends have
taken pains to point out, was made solely on merit
– based on his reputation and integrity as an
economist and thinker.
This is the highest UN post yet to go to any Malaysian,
so why has the home ground reaction been somewhat
subdued, to say the least.
Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar had congratulated
him but had added rather tersely that he hoped Jomo
would discharge his duties in a "balanced and
fair manner."
Syed Hamid also urged Jomo who is known as a "critic
of the Government" to make Malaysia proud by
championing the agenda of the developing world.
The point is that Jomo, whom some may find hard to
ignore, has been quite pointedly ignored by the establishment.
Over the years, this Yale and Harvard graduate has
acquired repute as a person of unconventional, even
radical, views, who goes against the grain and is
unafraid of contradicting establishment opinion.
"He has ruffled feathers with his sharp and critical
mind but he does not criticise blindly. He does give
credit to the Government but he is not immune to flaws
and mistakes. But he has used the academic space well
to articulate views affecting society, the nation
and the world at large," said Universiti Kebangsaan
Malaysia academic Prof Datuk Dr Rahman Embong.
"His opinions have conflicted with those in power
but at the international level, they take a broader
view and they respect him."
In short, Jomo is not a yes-man.
A number of his publications have been critical of
government policy and leaders.
He has also made no bones about his ties with Parti
Rakyat Malaysia right from the days when the political
party still had the Socialist tag to its name.
His political alignments probably did not help much
given the highly personalised nature of the Malaysian
political culture. Political personalities dominate
the public sphere and articulated opinion is more
often assessed by who one supports than by facts and
figures.
And during the political upheaval of 1998, when a
great number of the Malay intelligentsia sided with
the opposition over the sacking of Datuk Seri Anwar
Ibrahim, Jomo went public with his opinion, declaring
himself an "Anwarista".
"He has always come across as someone who has
married intellect with conscience. He's used his economic
expertise to promote the cause of the downtrodden
and that makes him pretty unique," said think-tanker
Razak Baginda.
But the man himself insisted that he is merely prone
to calling a spade a spade.
"Government critic, social critic ... those are
labels that people use in chatting about all kinds
of things," Jomo insisted.
He said he does what he does because he believes "there
is a role for people who want to think independently
and who want to share what they think to better understand
society and for social progress."
He added: "There's nothing very novel in what
I say. Very often, I am only saying things that people
privately believe in but do not say out loud or think
they are not free to do so. I go to a place, sometimes
even in men's toilets ... people come up to shake
my hand and congratulate me for having said something
which I thought had been kind of obvious.
"Actually, it is not all that simple for it requires
a great deal of courage, self-conviction and perhaps
even a dose of ego to speak the truth to power, as
the late Palestinian intellectual Edward W. Said put
it."
But, he said: "The truth may hurt and offend
but I don't deliberately go around trying to offend
people."
On how the mainstream media have sidestepped him over
the years, he said: "I've become a bit more conscious
about the seduction of the sound bite. It's about
resisting the temptation to succumb to one's vanity
or to be gratified just because one is quoted."
But Rustam, a former university lecturer and an intellectual
in his own right, believes quite rightly that Jomo
had made very conscious choices whether as an academic
or an intellectual.
"Whatever his actions, he knew what was in store
for him. He could have gone anywhere he liked outside
of Malaysian academia. He could have become a Tan
Sri and get to sit on advisory boards but he reserved
the right to express things his way," said Rustam.
There is also the perception that Jomo was sidelined
in his career as an academic, but Rustam said that
while the former was never appointed dean nor would
he even have a blue-moon chance of becoming a deputy
vice-chancellor, he did make it to professorial rank.
"They could not deny him that," said Rustam.
Even Jomo's lifestyle is consciously unostentatious.
For years, he used to drive around in a beat-up Nissan
and his cotton batik shirts and slippers were trademark
attire for him on campus.
He turned up for this interview in a pale grey, striped
shirt that looked like it had seen better days, and
grey slacks. If not for anything else, the outfit
matched his greying hair.
But despite his stoop, a result of his towering frame,
Jomo has an insouciant elegance about him. And his
eloquence and intellect makes him a compelling speaker.
Despite his public reputation, he is, as Rustam pointed
out, an extremely private person.
Now 52, Jomo left Universiti Malaya this year and
is a senior research fellow at the Asia Research Institute,
National University of Singapore. He has two children
from his first marriage and he recently married Noelle
Rodriguez, an academic from the Philippines.
He told friends who congratulated him on his UN job,
which he will take up next month, that he should have
left academic life earlier.
"I'm no great fan of Henry Kissinger but he once
said that university politics is really the pits because
the methods people use are so vicious but the stakes
so petty and trivial," he said by way of explaining
the reason for finally calling it a day in academia.
It is a rather big career change at this point in
life and he admitted to being a little apprehensive
about becoming a bureaucrat.
At the same time, the international post seems a natural
stage in his long career.
He joined Universiti Malaya in 1977 and his early
years saw him immersed in publishing magazines and
working with grassroots groups. He was away on sabbatical
when Operation Lalang occurred in 1987.
Jomo described Operation Lalang as a time-marker that
led to his transition to a greater interest in regional
and eventually international economic debates.
Four days before Sept 11, he set up IDEAs (International
Development of Economics Associates), a South-based
network led by economists in developing countries
and whose aim is for progressive economists to do
and promote research, teaching, dissemination and
application of economic policy and development.
The idea, said one of his friends, is typical of Jomo
– always trying to meld ideals with expertise
and to put it into practice.
"Like him or hate him, he has been an honest
intellectual," said Razak.
END
|